The Thirteenth Stroke
by Kim The Manipaltive Little Mo
Summary: Jareth isn't a name, it's a title, and it along with the role of Goblin Queen gets passed onto Sarah, and she's not nice.


Title: The Thirteenth Stroke  
  
Author: Kim, The Manipulative Little Monster  
  
Rating: PG-13  
  
Summary: What if Jareth wasn't so much as a name as a title and one that gets passed on as the goblin ruler is defeated?  
  
Disclaimer: Yeah, if you know it, I don't own it, but please don't clone my plot idea.  
  
Author's note: This idea came to me from the laby list where there was a discussion on if Jareth was a title rather then a name. I give thanks to AM, the Muse who rules all things, (Much love for the Wes and Wiccage) and also to Norma for her encouragement. On another note, nooooooo not another round of laby obsession!  
  
Prologue  
  
That was it then. The lights started to wan as the room fell away, each moment slowing past the stroking of the midnight's call. Nine. ten. Eleven. Twelve was beat softly with the repetitiveness of the lacking heartbeat. All over this little world breath was held captive in chests, lingering a bit as eyes turned towards the heavens, towards the dawn that seemed to hover just over the horizon. However, but never come to pass. The thirteenth stroke just stopped, and one by one the goblins started to fall, molting and turning to rust-toned dust as they hovered in the air.  
  
And then they simply fell into nothingness.  
  
Hoggle stood, staring over the walls of the Labyrinth as their essence pulled away from the life-force that had sustained it for so long. A thousand years. That had been the longest record for the same power to coexist with what was here. The little man sighed softly, feeling his fingers sliding over the wrinkles of the image of the body that he had been bound in become elastic, and he quickly grasped the skin and snapped it with a smile. One could sign of the defeat; he would be able to return to his form.  
  
From beside him he heard the near-silent tread of footfalls, and he turned towards the source with a lavish smile. The woman placed her hand on his wrist slowly, feeling it lengthen as it moved forward. She sighed a bit as she saw the dying vines simply unfurl from their boundaries on the walls. "He's lost then?"  
  
He sighed softly. "Yes, it had to happen eventually."  
  
"We always fall for the silliest of mortals."  
  
He chuckled at that. "I know. He knew too, but he still couldn't beat the curse."  
  
"No one does, Hoggle, and that's the sad thing. There isn't any joy here. We're always left wanting what we can't have, our little taste of mortality."  
  
"The book has been recalled." Hoggle spoke the words softly, and his hand was extended up towards the castle at the labyrinth's center. Large liquid brown eyes turned towards the unfurled fingers and she sighed softly, her eyes closing beneath thick lash before she stared at the castle as the image shifted from the foreboding childish structure to the building of naturally formed stone. It seemed more like a mountain then anything else.  
  
"He knew it was coming. One doesn't rule here forever."  
  
"I know that, Ludo. I just almost forgot how juvenile he was when he came here and created this in his self-image. Do you think we should go to him?"  
  
"I don't think he would welcome that. The goblins are dead. How odd, I've forgotten how quiet the place is without them."  
  
"They'll come back with the new ruler, they have too."  
  
"She'll have to start her own collection. It's her duty." Ludo smiled as she moved closer to Hoggle and wrapped her arms around him slowly, closing her eyes and sighing. "It's so nice to be back in our old forms. I haven't looked in a mirror in a thousand years, not since he defeated you."  
  
He laughed at her softly, his fingers running through her red hair. "It's good to have you back. I can only hope that she'll pick something better then the childish ideas that Jareth allowed her to have."  
  
She looked at him and chided him gently. "He isn't Jareth anymore, Hoggle."  
  
"I'd almost forgotten that. I'm sure he has. I know how odd it was for me to go from a name to a title. What was his name again?"  
  
"Kelton, from the town he was born in. He's going to get used to having to hear that name again."  
  
"How long did it take you, Ludonna?"  
  
"Not as long as it took you, Hoggleston."  
  
He laughed at the easy use of his first name; he could actually hear her say it to him before this, when she faced him down in a room filled with white. His eyes darkened, and the older man looked sad for a moment. "She's not going to understand this you know."  
  
Ludo nodded. "There's something inside her, a darkness there. I worry about her and what it's going to mean. She's not going to turn out to be what he will expect."  
  
"She was too young."  
  
"Yes, she was. Much too young. And as she ages she will become."  
  
He interrupted her, placing his fingers against her lips. "Don't think about that now. We have to go. Ja--- I mean Kelton will be needing us to complete the ceremony."  
  
"Didymus will have to be found as well."  
  
"He's already on his way, Hoggle."  
  
He looked at her oddly for a moment before he nodded. "I had forgotten the connection."  
  
"It will be good to see him too," she mused, with a bit of a smile, and then laughed at his pout. "It is the way to be bound with your mortal. I was his own, don't forget that."  
  
"Yes, and I was yours, Ludo. Don't forget that."  
  
"How could I, Hoggle? But that isn't here nor there now. We have to go."  
  
He nodded a bit before he took her hand and closed his eyes, bringing them to the castle.  
  
The last Jareth sat on the throne, staring at the rock before him. The new throne room held high ceilings, polished to almost a mirror, throwing the reflection of the stars almost to infinity.  
  
His blue eyes closed slowly, the thick lashes moving around them as he felt the image he had so carefully locked himself disintegrating around him like ashes flaking away. Sigh followed as the hair rolled down his cheeks, and then shortened, forming the black locks that belonged to Kelton. Clothes remained the same, but his frame filled out, becoming bigger. He looked older, but only by a bit as his piercing blue eyes shifted to the glowing forms that were entering the room.  
  
Kelton wanted to fight them to do something to make it all not true, but he couldn't. Even now he couldn't summon a crystal. He had never felt so weak in his life. Ludo was cradled Didymus in his arms, and for the first time he saw the fox in his true form, the first time he saw all of them in their forms, save for Hoggle.  
  
Ludo had long red hair, falling down almost to the floor, and she was dressed in a simple white robe. Her eyes were wide and expression as she watched the man in her arms almost with something akin to sadness, only beyond it. Her glow was brighter then his, as if she was trying to infuse his aura with her own.  
  
Hoggle stood behind her, and Kelton knew the form that the prior Jareth took. He had long silver hair flowing down his back and the same piercing blue eyes that his heir had. In one hand was a long walking stick and he studied Kelton for a moment, his forehead furled as he looked at Didymus. This would be his last ceremony.  
  
Didymus black's eyes locked on his mortal and he stroked her hair before he looked to Kelton. His voice was soft and creaky. "It is time, Jareth to pass along the title." No one else would have said it in such a bold manner, but his age caused allowances to be made.  
  
Jareth Kelton, The Goblin King stood up and walked to the center of the room, staring into the crystalline pit. He sighed before he was joined with the other prior kings and queen of the goblins.  
  
Four bodies took to the four points and raised their hands towards the water. The fingers were infused with a soft glow as the water was touched. Hoggle spoke first, in the ancient language, before Ludo spoke. She looked at Kelton almost reproachfully as he spoke his words, and then she moved closer to the goblin king who had stolen her away. Hands brushed his own as if to remove the burden from him before he spoke softly.  
  
"To the Underground I give my magic to sustain it, for it gave it's own to sustain me." The pool bubbled and glowed as the power was taken from them, leaving them all weaker and closer to mortal. Didymium's body hit the ground, and Ludo wrapped her hands around his, and then started to sob softly, the tears falling on the wasted frame of the old man.  
  
Fifteen years into the future, a woman woke up screaming from the dream that had haunted her half her life.  
  
And then she screamed again as she felt the shards of a crystal dragging into her skin and calling blood to spill. 


End file.
